Christmas Gift Guide III: The Bedroom

As you may have realised this year, we are taking a slightly more lateral approach to gift guides, choosing things based on the recipient’s favourite room or just choosing our presents for the spaces they will go in rather than trying to shoehorn people into categories they don’t want to be in.

Choosing presents based on a room and its activities is a good way to start. You can begin with that and build out from there with a mix of items for the person and the space. So bedrooms – fabulous pyjamas, a pile of books, a bedside light and a cosy throw. Pick and mix as you go And make sure you read the captions as I have linked to everything in the image above.

We are taking as our overriding consideration, things that are beautiful and useful so that you can take an ordinary item and elevate it by making it so lovely that its mundanity no longer applies. NB – this does not apply to irons, hoovers and other items of domestic drudgery. Cooking gadgets are a thing of joy to the keen baker, a passive aggressive weapon to the reluctant cook.

So today let’s look at the bedroom. Now there’s no need to get all nudge nudge wink wink here, these are presents for the room remember. And by extension they will improve your life and sleep.

We spend a third of our lives in bed so a set of luxurious, perhaps monogrammed, bedding is a great idea for Christmas gifts. Linen is currently all the rage – the more you pay for it the better it seems to be – sad but true. But it doesn’t have to be linen. New company Wallace Cotton, has a large range of bedding with everything from flowers to stripes with spots and stonewashed cotton as well.

If not bedding, then throws and blankets are always welcome additions to bedroom decor. I’m not going to talk about cushions but you might want to. Then you can add books and magazines and scented candles as seasoning but don’t forget hot water bottles, cashmere socks, silk pyjamas and pretty sleep masks.

Moving back to the larger end of the scale then a new bedside lamp, or table or rug are all great additions to the bedroom and of course, tricky to choose, but a new picture for the wall. Time is getting tight but is there a great photograph that you, or they, have taken, that you could get framed?

A new clock radio, or a speaker – the ones by Urban Ears come in great colours with matching cables which is a great touch. And, or course, they don’t have to be confined to the bedroom but we’re just trying to get you started here. Don’t forget fabulous slippers – I buy my mother these from Coco Rose. They’re not strictly slippers – more folding shoes that you can put in your bag for the way home when you can’t walk another step in your Choos – but she is a woman who wouldn’t been seen dead in slippers outside the bedroom so these work very well on cold winter days.

Plants are always lovely in a bedroom and there’s a wealth of accessories you can buy from watering cans and misters, to pots and vases for cut flowers.

I do hope these guides are helping. I have just looked at one site which was supposed to filter ideas through for a husband. These included a canvas tool wrap he would laugh – and not in a good way – if I told him to keep his tools in that rather than in a practical and sturdy box from Homebase, a plate in the shape of a leaf…..I can’t even…. a novelty salt and pepper set, some Gin – and some matches. And if I gave him that lot I might have to dowse myself in the Gin and set fire to myself with the matches.

But I reckon he wouldn’t mind a set of snuggling bedroom stuff or a cosy reading kit for the sitting room. Along with that can of Stella Artois from the first Christmas gift guide.